In early 2009, Skype launched the beta of Skype for SIP, its enterprise-focused offering that connects Skype to IP-PBX or Unified Communications (UC) systems.

Is this the party to whom I am speaking?

18 months later, Skype Connect (née Skype for SIP) moved out of beta after a long gestation period, and we sat down with David Gurlé, general manager and vice president of the Skype for Business unit, to find out what had changed and what the company learnt during the beta period.

Since this is Skype’s foray into enterprise sales, we weren’t surprised that this has been a learning experience.  Compared to 18 months ago, the company now has a better understanding of the expectations that customers have for support, call quality, ease of setup, and features.  For the final release, Skype added 24×7 support, a configuration wizard, and features such as conference calling.

As a result, setting up Skype Connect is now quite easy.  Using Skype Manager, users select the number of lines they need, and purchase and configure Skype Connect.  Features include outbound calling to landlines and mobile phones at standard Skype per-minute rates, inbound call reception from lines in a corporate PBX via online Skype numbers, and inbound call reception from Skype Click and Call buttons placed on Web sites.  Additionally, Skype Connect includes the ability to use call and management features from existing PBX and UC systems such as logging, call recording, auto-attendant, voicemail, conferencing, automatic call distribution, and call routing.

Gurlé noted that one of the most encouraging outcomes of the beta program was that many users (there are 2400 distinct customers, but actual user numbers are not available) began with Skye Connect as a secondary network option, but then adopted the service as their primary option.

Gurlé also stated that the option of using embeddable click-to-call buttons on Web sites had led to adoption in call center scenarios.  Also, based on user data, the number of outgoing calls and inbound calls on the service were roughly equal.

Customers who participated in the beta program included companies in finance, healthcare, travel, high tech, and hospitality, and were generally organizations with over 50 people.  A common theme that linked the beta testers was that they were organizations operating across multiple sites.

For Gurlé, the next step for Skype Connect is to establish itself in the market and demonstrate to customers that they can rely on the company for enterprise-level service.  Future enhancements that are being mulled over include video support as well as the ability to place IP to IP calls, bypassing the PSTN network.

In order to gain significant traction in the market, however, Skype will need to form partnerships with telecommunications and network providers as well as the many systems integrators that now serve the SMB market.  Gurlé says that Skype will be announcing some channel partners in the not-too-distant future.  In the meantime Skype has certified Skype Connect for PBX and UC offerings from Avaya, Cisco, Siemens, SIPfoundry, and ShoreTel.  It can also work with TDM PBXs and Key Systems via third-party IP gateways from AudioCodes, Grandstream, and VoSKY.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

“I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.”
-Mae West

Temptation surrounds all of us and knowledge workers are not exempt; we are tempted daily by the allure of the Internet, social networking, news sites, and real-time communication with friends and colleagues.

Care for another?

These temptations must be avoided to remain productive, however, it appears that self-control isn’t a limitless resource: we can run out of it if we are not careful.

Exercising self-control is critical to being a productive worker.  Schedules must be kept, non-work activities must be kept to a minimum, and distractions must be filtered out.  Unfortunately, self-control is also finite.  Studies in both humans and animals have shown that resisting temptation depletes glucose levels, which in turn reduces the ability to focus on challenging tasks.

In one study, human volunteers were divided into two groups.  One group was told they may eat the provided chocolate chip cookies while the other group was told to not touch the cookies but to instead snack on some radishes.  Needless to say, the group eating the cookies was not exercising self-control by resisting the charms of the radishes, but the radish-eating group had to resist the appeal of the tasty cookies.

Both groups were then asked to complete an impossible puzzle, and the length of time they would commit before giving up was measured.  The cookie group lasted an average of 19 minutes before giving up, faring much better than the radish group who on average gave up after just eight minutes.

The study was repeated with dogs where one group did nothing and the other was asked to sit still for ten minutes (a mentally exhausting task for a dog), and then attempt to remove treats from a chew toy that had been altered to make it impossible.  The results were the same, the dogs who had already exerted self-control had far less patience for the new task.

The studies demonstrate two things.  One is that our ability to exert self-control is tied to glucose levels (so eat more snacks). The second is that the act of restraining ourselves is mentally and physically taxing.  By subjecting ourselves to temptation that we must actively resist, such as online distractions and constant communication, we degrade our ability to be effective at our jobs.

For reducing Information Overload and its impact, the answer (aside from more glucose), is that perhaps we have to remove temptation altogether, so we do not expend valuable energy controlling ourselves.  Basically, keep out of temptation’s way until you are done working.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

Warning: Information Overload bots at work?

Information Overload is often thought of as an annoyance and a productivity killer – but there are far more nefarious aspects to it, such as spreading disinformation that misleads competitors, which can in turn disrupt markets.

Alexis Madrigal, writing in the Atlantic, reported that Jeffrey Donovan, a software engineer at Nanex, a data services firm, uncovered the activity of trading bots in electronic stock exchanges that send thousands of orders a second. The orders have buy and sell prices that are not near to market prices, meaning they would not ever be part of a real trade. The activities of these bots are not noticeable unless viewed on an extremely small time scale, in this case just milliseconds.

Donovan noticed the strange activity when looking for causes of the May 2 “Flash Crash” in the Dow, when it plunged nearly 1,000 points over a few minutes. He managed to plot the activity, and found distinct patterns emerge. The patterns show that the bots are making these extremely quick and non-serious orders (meaning with no intention of buying or selling anything) at almost all times.

Donovan’s theory, although not universally supported, is that rival trading companies could use the bots to introduce noise into the market, and use the delay caused by the noise to gain a millisecond advantage in trading, which in high frequency trading, may be significant.

There are other theories to explain the activity, including that the bots are actually real trading algorithms being tested, that they are a financial radar that is probing the market, and even that they are an emergent AI of sorts. Ultimately, no one really seems to know what the bots are doing or whom they belong to.

Regardless of the motives of these mysterious bots, they raise the specter of using Information Overload as a weapon, whereby you distract your competitor with information noise.

It is possible that the introduction of these orders on a timescale small enough in order to avoid detection may have played a part in the May 2 crash, and may play a role in future crashes. However, Madrigal notes in his article that, although Donovan believes that this kind of bot activity may have been a factor on May 2, he also stresses that there were many other variables, making assigning blame next to impossible.

Can Information Overload be used as a disruptive tactic? The answer is, of course it can. As we introduce more and more information into our lives, the potential to spread misinformation and to game the systems that filter and manage that information grows exponentially.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

The battle to find the right piece of content at the right moment is a never ending quest for the knowledge worker.

Calling all cars...

While most companies have organized their various internal content stores and many have contracted for authoritative external content from sources such as Factiva and LexisNexis, this is only half the battle.

All of this progress notwithstanding, a knowledge worker often has to search through multiple systems to find exactly what he is looking for.  Frequently, he may not end up with the best and most up-to-date content because the individual searches produced results different from those an aggregated search would have presented.

Comintelli, a Swedish company founded in 1999, addresses this challenge with its Knowledge XChanger offering.  The solution aggregates content from both internal and external sources and then classifies, organizes, and presents relevant items to knowledge workers.  The content is packaged and delivered to work groups in a role-based and customized format so that only the most relevant information is presented.  Additionally, users select topics and enter search terms to further drill down on an area and refine the result set.

Knowledge XChanger allows knowledge workers to publish information through an easy-to-use browser-based interface or via e-mail.  In addition, the system supports commenting, voting, and chat around content.

Users can personalize how they receive information by using automatic e-mail alerts and/or via a customized start page.

When the user does perform a search, he is tapping into content that has been drawn from vetted and authoritative sources, which could include internal sites or select external sources such as news sites as well as from content providers such as Factiva.

A particularly valuable feature in Knowledge XChanger is the ability to find experts on a given topic.  The system uses Knowledge Points, a customizable feature that assigns points to users based on activities, to determine expertise.  For instance, a user may receive points for every time he reads an article, searches on a term, or comments on content.  Users can search for individuals who have expertise in a given area.

Tools such as Knowledge XChanger are key components on the road to the development of true Collaborative Business Environments.  In addition, by aggregating and delivering timely and relevant role-based content to the knowledge worker, the system tackles several aspects of Information Overload relating to search and information management.

Finally, by supporting expertise location with the system’s ability to associate individuals in an organization with topics they have knowledge and interest, Comintelli has taken a big step in improving knowledge sharing and collaboration by connecting knowledge workers to each other and jump-starting the collaboration process.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

The somewhat elusive key to understanding Information Overload, and thus developing meaningful solutions to lessen its impact, is to first develop a clear picture of the amount of information that individuals receive and consume and also develop an understanding of how much information is too much in a given circumstance.

Just how hungry for information are you now?

This is a tricky set of problems because information does not lend itself to direct measurement.  Traditionally, researchers have approached this question in one of three ways, namely looking at words, bytes, or time.  A document, for instance, could be high in words, low in bytes, and high in time spent reading it.  A video clip on the other hand, could be low in words, high in bytes, and low in time.

Research conducted at the University of California, San Diego tells us that roughly 3.6 zettabytes of information were consumed by Americans in their homes in 2008.  This translates to ca. 11.8 hours a day of information consumption.  Those numbers are, as stated, for information received and consumed solely in the home and do not address business settings.

In the coming months we will begin our efforts to determine how much information knowledge workers consume in the course of their work, thereby developing a profile and understanding of the knowledge workers’ information diet.

One concept we are studying is satisficing, a method of decision making that seeks to reach an “adequate” solution to a problem, as opposed to searching relentlessly for the optimal solution that may cost more in time spent than it is worth.  Satisficing is a naturally occurring and largely subconscious thought process that probably kept humankind from starving at some point in history, when our ancestors decided that they could make do with the berries on the tree and not wait forever for the perfect mammoth to pass by.

Depending on the circumstances, knowledge workers are both under- and overusing this strategy.  This frequently leaves them with sub-par solutions to a problem or results in wasted time when a simpler solution exists.

Another interesting concept we are grappling with is how to measure information.  The Shannon entropy, developed by Claude E. Shannon in 1948, is a way to measure the average information content of a message in units such as bits.  Perhaps more intriguing, it also provides a way to measure the information content that knowledge workers miss when they are unaware of a random variable.  For example, if only the last letter of a word is missing, it would be relatively easy to determine the word, as the other letters would provide context.  However, if only one or two of the letters in the word are presented, it will be much harder to determine the word, as there is little or no context.

Since this is ongoing work, and many of you readers have backgrounds in this area, we would like to hear from you in the coming weeks.  What do you think is the most valid way to measure information?  How much work related information do you estimate you are exposed to on a daily basis and how are you making these estimates?

Please participate in the discussion below.

Jonathan B. Spira is CEO and Chief Analyst at Basex.
Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

The Information Overload Research Group (IORG) and the Basex Information Overload Network (ION) had its joint quarterly meeting on April 7.  The topic for the meeting was individual Information Overload-fighting strategies and participants brought a wide range of interesting ideas with them.

Please, tell me what to do!

Nathan Zeldes, IORG’s president, spoke about the value of e-mail management strategies such as checking e-mail only once a day, in his case at lunch, and setting up a folder system that separates messages into those that must be dealt with immediately, today, or can be followed up on later.  Another point he stressed is that e-mail should not be used as a to-do list.

Zeldes also discussed how the use of tools, such as using a powerful indexing search engine to quickly find e-mail messages or off-loading as much as possible to RSS feeds, which can help to reduce the frustrations that arise from an overloaded and unwieldy inbox.

Jonathan Spira, IORG’s vice president for research and Basex’ chief analyst, talked about how the use of multiple monitors generally increased his productivity, but how on some occasions, when under deadline or when needing to focus exclusively on one task, he will turn off the extra screen and just use one display to complete his task.

Other tools that were mentioned in the discussion included Twitter.  Maura Thomas, a principal at Burget Avenue Management Services, uses Twitter as a search tool to find relevant information, instead of browsing through headlines and RSS feeds.  She related her experience with using the service to reduce the amount of time she would have to spend looking for information that interests her; she uses Twitter to follow people who are focused on what is relevant to her and are knowledgeable in the areas of her interests.

The use of Twitter to fight Information Overload sounds like a contradiction in terms but Thomas stressed that Twitter is like any other tool and only interrupts if you let it.  In this same vein, she noted that the key to managing Information Overload is to take control and go on the offensive; do not allow yourself to be stuck in a defensive position where you are only reacting.

The issue of control was reiterated by several speakers, including Lesa Becker, director of organizational learning and development at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, and Paul Silverman, president of Integra Workshops.  Both advocated taking control of one’s information flow through mindfulness, meaning being aware of the present moment and not letting ourselves be distracted by stray thoughts, and by being conscious of the impact of the choices we make.  This includes carefully picking what technology, such as Twitter, to be involved in, based on the impact it has on you.  For some, a service such as Twitter may be helpful, for others, it may be a torrent of extraneous and irrelevant information.  Nancy Snell chimed in on this to note that Information Overload is not going to stop, so the only option is to begin making individual choices to reduce its impact.

Silverman also offered a suggestion for getting more done in a day, namely to do “the worst thing first.”  He explained that this strategy pays off because it allows the knowledge workers to take control of their day, get the most pressing and/or nagging task(s) done, and hopefully regain focus for the rest of the day by not having to spend time dreading that particularly nasty task.

Another key point that was articulated multiple times was that a knowledge worker has the ability to disengage from technology tools, as well as limit the impact those tools have on the inbox to reduce their level of Information Overload.  Jared Goralnick, CEO of AwayFind, and Bill Kirwin, vice president of research at getcontrol.net both advocated strategies such as turning off e-mail notifications from social networks, sending less e-mail so as to receive less e-mail, and generally reducing the amount of incoming information by reducing the amount of outgoing information.

A discussion of what participants learnt from the meeting is taking place on the Basex Information Overload Network’s LinkedIn page.  Feel free to join in.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

Humans by nature tend to both overestimate their own abilities to do things and despair on the perceived ability of others to do the same.

24 monitors? I can handle it!

We all believe we are special. Indeed, that’s why we would all likely be in agreement that talking on the phone or texting while driving is dangerous and should not be done. Yet when push comes to shove, we may make exceptions for ourselves, and take a call that comes in while we careen down the freeway. We tell ourselves that we can handle it, that we are adept multitaskers, or supertaskers, even as we give dirty looks to others doing the same thing.

It appears that some of us are right about being supertaskers, but it is probably not who you think (meaning not you).

A recent study conducted by psychologists at the University of Utah was designed to examine the extent to which subjects could talk on a mobile phone and drive at the same time.

The 200 subjects participated in a driving simulation that mimicked ordinary traffic conditions, with occasional instances where they would have to slow down to avoid hitting something in front of them. As a baseline, each participant drove with no other stimulus and then drove while engaging in a conversation via a hands-free mobile phone. The researchers read sets of two to five words, with simple math problems that had to be indentified as true or false interspersed between the word sets. The subject was then asked to recall words in the order that they were presented.

The study found that 97.5% of the subjects’ driving was significantly impaired while on the phone, meaning they took an average of 20% longer to hit the brakes when necessary. Word recall dropped 11% and math accuracy dropped 3%.

However, the study also revealed that 2.5% of the subjects drove and multitasked the same or actually better while on the phone. For that group brake response times remained the same, math accuracy was unchanged, and word recall accuracy actually rose 3%.

Sounds great? Here is the problem.

If you think you are one of these people, you probably are not. Statistically, the odds are against you, you have about a one in 40 probability of being a supertasker. Additionally, people who are very good at things tend to underestimate their abilities, while those who are not as good tend to overestimate. This is backed up by research from Stanford that shows that those who frequently multitask are actually worse at it than those that avoid it.

For the overwhelming majority of knowledge workers, while they may believe that they are faster and more efficient by multitasking, multitasking actually slows down the flow of work and can introduce errors and mistakes. Statistics say you are unlikely to actually be a supertasker, so just don’t do it.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

As perhaps the most widely-deployed e-mail client in the corporate world, Outlook is where many knowledge workers spend a majority of their time.

A new Outlook

E-mail is so central to knowledge work today that the inbox has evolved into the nexus for not only communication, but daily tasks, scheduling, and document and project management.  As a result, it is of paramount importance for knowledge workers to have an e-mail experience that fully supports their work.

The forthcoming version, Outlook 2010, receives multiple enhancements and features that were first introduced in other Microsoft Office applications.  Perhaps the most significant addition is the Fluent UI and Ribbon.  While the Ribbon has had its critics, notably those stalwarts who prefer the old drop down menu system, the fact remains that it is now the primary user interface for Office and adding it to Outlook was a logical step in order to create a unified user experience across the Office suite.

We found QuickSteps to be one of the most intriguing and promising new features.  Quick Steps provides one-click buttons to automate common and recurring tasks such as filing e-mails, sending e-mail messages to predetermined groups of co-workers, or initiating a meeting with all members of an e-mail chain.  To automate more complex or personalized tasks, Quick Steps also allows the user to create custom buttons that control the desired functionality.  The Quick Steps feature increases individual productivity by saving small amounts of time multiple times each day.

Outlook now also features the new Backstage View, which provides access to settings and account information (for more on Backstage, see our previous analysis).

Another enhancement that has been rolled across all the Office applications is integration with OneNote.  From the Outlook tasks list, the user can access notes in OneNote by selecting the new Task Notes function.  From within OneNote, notes can be turned into tasks that are synched with Outlook task and appear on the Outlook calendar.  The integration allows users to use OneNote to create tasks, but subsequently manage them from within Outlook.

To address the misuse of e-mail, such as all-hands reply to alls and the unintended inappropriate e-mailing of confidential information, Outlook now has MailTips, an alert system that notifies the user when he is about to send a message that violates e-mail usage etiquette or formal rules.  Actions that would prompt an alert include sending potentially confidential information to people outside of a workgroup or the organization, large distribution lists, recipients who are out of the office, restricted addresses, recipients who are using automatic replies, and violations of size limitations for e-mail attachments.  The feature requires Exchange 2010, which works with Outlook to determine if an alert is necessary as recipients are added and the message is being composed.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

Last week, Google announced the Google Apps Marketplace, where customers of its Google Apps business software suite can search, download, and manage third party business applications that integrate with core Google Apps such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar.

Making Google Smarter

While there are a plethora of applications available in the marketplace, and that number is certain to grow, we wanted to a look at one company’s offerings to see where the integration points were and what the benefits for the knowledge worker might be.

Smartsheet, which we first wrote about in October 2008, has taken its collaborative spreadsheet solution and released Google App offerings including Sales Pipeline Management, Crowdsourcing, and Project Management.  The new applications provide hooks into Gmail, Google Docs including spreadsheets, and contacts.  The applications are installed in a company’s Google Apps domain and are accessed via the “More” drop down menu on the top the screen in Gmail.  The integration enables single-sign on with OpenID, management of Smartsheet from the Google Apps control panel, the ability to import/export Google spreadsheets, attach Google Docs to cells, and import contact information from Gmail.  Future plans include full integration with Google Calendar, to enable project plans to be overlaid with personal calendar data.

All functionality in the Google Apps versions of Smartsheet are the same as in the company’s regular releases; indeed, consumer Gmail users can already export/import spreadsheets and attach Google Docs from the regular Smartsheet offerings in addition to being able to use the OpenID single-sign on.  Given the existing integration capabilities, the main benefit that Smartsheet users will enjoy with the new Google App version is the integration into the Gmail interface.

For end users of Google Apps, the benefits of integration between Smartsheet’s offerings, Gmail, and the rest of the Google Apps are obvious; more users will be exposed to the unique functionality of Smartsheet.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.

In a recent video uploaded to YouTube, a college professor produces a styrofoam cooler, a laptop, and a container of liquid nitrogen in front of a lecture hall full of students.

A different kind of upgrade

He proceeds to place the laptop in the cooler, freeze the laptop with the liquid nitrogen and, with dramatic flourish, smash it to bits on the floor, while proclaiming loudly, “Don’t bring laptops and work on them in class!  Have I made my point clear?”

Very clear indeed.

The prevalence of mobile devices such as laptops, netbooks, and smartphones is a uniquely double edged sword for the lecture hall, as well as the corporate boardroom.  On one hand they present educational opportunities through the ability to take notes, do research, and interact with multimedia elements that support a teacher’s lesson plan.  However, they also open a door to nearly limitless distraction.

The education system is struggling with this dynamic as it on one hand increasingly requires students to have laptops, while at the same time, faces a growing number of professors who are banning their use in class.  We wrote about the issues that educators face in regards to technology in our 2008 report, Technologies to Teach the Thumb Generation (http://bsx.stores.yahoo.net/tethge.html) and found that, for the most part, educational institutions were lagging behind both corporate and consumer trends in technology.

What our nitrogen-happy professor was demonstrating was his annoyance with students who use tools that could help their in-class efforts but instead end up negatively impacting their academic performance.  This occurs because it is not simply enough to give a room full of students laptops and expect them to be productive; a deeper understanding of how the technology is being used, and in what situations it may be advantageous to use it, is required.

For instance, taking notes can be accomplished perfectly well by hand, which means a student need not open up a laptop and be tempted by his friends’ Facebook updates.  Polling students or having them conduct research on a topic on the other hand is an appropriate use of the technology.

We are still feeling out the best ways for technology to be applied to classroom settings, and just as in the business world, often the best intentions lead to unintended consequences, such as Information Overload and unnecessary distractions.  Although we do not advocate the destruction of innocent laptops, we do applaud the professor for setting the tone in his lecture hall and recognizing the potential for distraction from technology when used in the wrong context.

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex.